Is There Life on Mars?
by Cececat
Summary: Estella has spent most of her life thinking she belongs somewhere far from conservative Denton. Then she meets Columbia. That groupie somehow knows people who fell to Earth in a strangely-shaped starship. The so-called 'starmen' turn out to be far more important to Estella's past than she could've possibly imagined.[Title from a David Bowie song](Please Read & Review!)


**Disclaimer: I don't own _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ or David Bowie songs**

 **A/N: Another story. Sorry. I just thought of it earlier and had to write it down. Like I said in the summary, it's named for the David Bowie song. A number of Bowie's songs feature in this. There's always a bit of symbolism involving which song is when/where. There's also symbolism in other places. As usual, this story stands for my life in some ways. Right now I'll tell you that Stell's 'addiction' to movies is like my love of RHPS and the song _Life on Mars_ is also _my_ 'theme' right now. **

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I, Estella 'Stell' Owens, always felt out of place.

Raised into the conservative town of Denton in 1957 I never had much exposure to non-mainstream culture. My 'parents' were respectable persons with no history of any criminal activity. Everyone was terribly polite for most of my life.

Though I did spend my childhood in the 1960s. That was surely part of the trouble, I thought for a while. All the funny protests you'd hear about, including all I heard about Stonewall when I was about twelve (my elder brother Davis was very keen on that for reasons it took me years to understand). So many crazy things were happening just out of reach. It made me want to scream. I felt like I was in a glass box. Watching the excitement, yet _just_ unable to truly interact.

Another issue might've been that I knew for many years I was adopted. So there was always a chance of a different set of parents showing up and cheerfully taking me home. My adopted family who I'd known all along was very nice and all. They just weren't my sort of people…

This 'true home' I dreamed of was a place full of strange persons who were also nicer than not-strange Dentonians. People who accepted everyone without much thought. Sometimes I literally dreamed of another place very far away. It was dark there, though in a nice way. The moonlight seemed to shine all the time there. A variety of people cared for me. Everyone understood me. Though that was just a strange dreamland… or so I long-thought.

When I was in my early teens the David Bowie album _Hunky Dory_ was released. I liked him because he was different. One of my dearest hopes was to meet him and befriend him. I thought we'd get along. Hundreds of groupies probably thought the same thing.

Anyway, _Hunky Dory_ included a song called _Life on Mars?_. It was a song that made me think. Mostly about myself. The girl in the beginning doesn't get along with her parents and her friends arent around. So she tries to drown her sorrow in movies at the local picture-house. Alas, she's seen the picture so many times that mock-living those fictional lives is pointlessly dull. I like to do that, sort of. I'll go see _Forbidden Planet_ at the grindhouse every chance I get and wish I were the character Altaira (or stare at her legs and wish I was in her bedroom). The usherette jokes I might as well replace her, I'm there so often. It's like a drug to me. Every time I see a movie I feel better when I'm there but feel worse when I return to normality.

Sometimes I'll wonder if there's life somewhere else for me. Like the place I dream of. Perhaps that's really Mars. That song was about wondering if there's a life out there in a far-off place that's better, that makes _sense_ … or so I think. It became my 'theme song' because of that interpretation.

On the day this tale begins I'd just gone to the record shop to buy _The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust._ The album had been released a year previously, but I hadn't the money for it back then. I've a talent for wasting all my allowance the second I get it. So going and buying the album was a big deal. Though that's not why this tale begins on that fine August day.

The real reason is a young woman, who I later learned called herself 'Columbia' (after the picture company). She had pink hair, drawn-on eyebrows, and seemed the sort of person that offend the town adults by existing. Of _course_ I wanted to talk to her!

"Hello, miss," I said. "You're hair is lovely."

That sounded very stupid and we both knew it. I suppose it was because I already had something of a crush on her. Yes, I have crushes on females sometimes. Though I still like the males – as you surely hoped – and hide this fact from people. Being into both sorts seems to offend people. Though I've never asked about it. There are some things you just can't say aloud in Denton. Those things are the things I really feel like I _need_ to know, alas.

"Thanks, kiddo. People 'round here don't often say those things," she replied, grinning gleefully. "That's half the reason I dress up like this and dye my hair so brightly."

"Oh?"

"Yep, kiddo. What a rebel I am! Not that you seem to care goin' by the look on your face. I'm Columbia, by the way."

"I'm… Owens. Stell Owens."

Then, she quickly bought a copy of something by the Beatles and left. As I watched her leave I noticed the song playing on the store's record player. It was clearly Bowie, though I didn't really recognize it.

" _There's a staaarman waiting in the sky. __He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds…"_

"What song is this?" I asked.

 _"…there's a staaarman waiting in the sky. He's told us not to blow it, 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile!"_

The clerk, a young man not older than me named 'Eddie', laughed. "It's _Starman_ , by David Bowie bein' Ziggy Stardust, an' it's on the record you're about to buy."

Indeed it was. Glad these new songs were as good as Bowie's earlier work I bought the record. Then I left the shop humming _Starman,_ a song I later associated with Columbia the Rebel for more reasons than you'd think.

Incidentally, Eddie was fired the very next day for shooting up heroin in the bathroom. Or so his crazy old uncle – a science teacher at my high school – claimed. All I know for sure is that he was fired, soon began working at a pizza parlor, and managed to get me Columbia's phone number quite soon.

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